Germany

Waking up the next morning, the first thing I saw was the snow covered ground. Even though we had not had a white Christmas, our boxing day decided it needed to be white. We had to get up and ready to be able to eat breakfast and then check out by 10:00 a.m., which is the common check out time at most hostels and hotels. Our train was scheduled for 12:44, so we decided to head straight to the train station because there was not time to do anything before our travel to the next city started. (I think I said that our last train left at 12:44 too but was late. I was wrong, although that one was late; it actually was scheduled to leave at 2:06. That is why that by the time we got to Munich, the daylight had gone and we did not have time to do much of anything).

This train ride would not be another easy one hour train; it would be six hours long, which meant we needed entertainment and snacks. Kenzy and Ali wanted to buy a deck of cards because none of us had thought to bring them for the trains that we would be taking from city to city. Unfortunately the only playing cards we could find in Munich cost 5 or 6 euros, which was more than they should cost anywhere, so we decided not to buy them there. Instead, Kenzy and I bought more candied nuts, which we proceeded to start eating before we boarded the train.

(One of the very few pictures of the day, but this is of the slushy snow as we made our way out of Munich)

Over the six hours we spent our time napping for a short while and playing many games that did not require cards. The games included the type where you choose a category such as books, movie titles, song titles, or something else that you can think of many of that subject. Someone starts and whatever letter the title they said ends with, you have think of a title that starts with that letter. You also cannot reuse the same titles and the word “the” does not count in titles. We played this game first with song titles and later book and movie titles.

Another game we played Kenzy said was a German game she learned from her grandmother, although I cannot remember the name in German. We played it in English of course. As many people as you want can play, but each need some way to write information down. Usually this is written on paper, but we used our phones because we did not have paper to write on. There are six categories that are as follows: city, country, river, name, job, animal. One person goes through the alphabet as quickly or as slowly as they want in their head so others cannot hear what letter they are on at any given time. Eventually someone else needs to tell the person going through the alphabet to stop. That person tells everyone the letter they stopped on. At this point someone with a timer starts the clock for a minute and a half and everyone must try to think of something in each of these categories starting with the mentioned letter during that time. After the time is up, a score keeper must write down each person’s name to keep score on a piece of paper. If you get a correct answer in a category that no one else gets, you get twenty points. If someone else picked a different thing for that category and both answers are possibilities, you each get ten points. If you both picked the same thing in that category that is correct, you get five points. If you could not think of anything you get zero points for that category. For example, if “E” was chosen, I could write something like this:

City: Edinburg

Country: Ecuador

River: Euphrates

Name: Eleanor

Job: Entertainer

Animal: Eel

If someone else chose Edinburg for their city too, we would both get five points. If only I chose Edinburg for the city that starts with E, then I get ten points, but someone else could get ten points too if they chose a different city. If nobody else could think of a city that started with E, then I would get twenty points.

The river category is the hardest letter because rivers are not as commonly known as any of the other categories. It is interesting to play though because you can learn something you did not think of from the people around you.

(In a restaurant we would later eat at)

Eventually we got to Prague and had to find our way to yet another hostel. There had been a slight booking problem, so we were only staying in this hostel for one night and then moving to another hostel the next day. Each time we go to a new city, we go to the information counter at the train station and ask them to point us in the direction of our hostel (what transportation would be the best to use and so on). Ali had led the way in the German cities because her German was the best, but now we were in an Eastern European city. Some of the words in Czech were similar enough to Russian that Kenzy and I could guess what they meant, which meant that some people probably spoke Russian if they did not speak English, but Prague is a very touristy city, so we didn’t encounter much of a problem using English.

The metro part of our journey to the hostel was pretty straight forward, but after we exited the metro station and found the tram station we were supposed to use, we did not know which direction we were supposed to go in. We saw a hotel nearby and went inside to ask them for directions. Hotels are very useful for travelers, even those who are not guests at any given one. The receptionists are usually very accommodating and willing to help and hotels either already have the information you need because they host tourists all of the time, or they can look it up for you. The inside of this hotel was done in a more old-fashioned style that was very pleasing to the eye. I remember that there were also some very tempting-looking cookies sitting on a table probably to welcome guests, which we were obviously not invited to enjoy because we were not guests staying at the hotel. The receptionist was very accommodating and pointed us in the correct direction – which was either direction; it just depended on whether we wanted to walk uphill or downhill with all of our luggage in tow. We chose to walk down hill, but when we got off at the top of the hill, there were multiple streets upon which the hill went down, so we found another hotel from which to ask assistance, again.

(On the way down the hill to the hostel)

When we finally were headed in the correct direction down the hill, we didn’t realize how far up the hill we had come just to walk down the hill. It took us at least fifteen minutes to walk from the area that the tram had dropped us off to find the hostel. The only good part about this walk was noticing the restaurants on the way down the hill, and the view when there was a break in the buildings. Nearing the end of our walk, Kenzy and Ali kept questioning whether or not we had missed the hostel. I had pulled the map up on my GPS back at the train station (a trick I found out back in Kazan’, if the map was already loaded on wifi and you walk away from the wifi and don’t try to fiddle with the map too much, you can still see directions, your location, and your destination’s location), but I knew that a couple times my map had mislead me, yet I still wanted to walk further down the hill to see if we would find the hostel. We did find it pretty quickly after this; it was just getting into the hostel that turned out to be a problem. Most hostels have the front door open for customers, but because this this desk only had a receptionist at it during a few hours of the day, the door remained locked unless someone pressed a button from the inside to allow you to enter. The man on the other end of the speaker who allowed us to enter did not seem to understand that once we entered we could not hear him on the speaker that was outside. Either this or he still wanted to talk to us to let us know that our keys were in a drop box near the desk since no one was at the desk at this time to inform us of this.

(Also on the way down the hill)

When we got to our room, we met two very nice Indian girls who would be our roommates for the night. We were a little confused at first because we thought the hostel had given one of us and one of the Indian girls a number for the same bed. In fact it turned out that two of us had been booked in one room and one of us in another. There was an extra bed in the 5 bedroom dorm because another friend was supposed to have traveled with the Indian girls, but could not come at the last minute. It shouldn’t really have mattered because it was only for one night, but it was a little disorienting that we had been booked in separate rooms because, although there is a disclaimer that says this can happen if the hostel is booked too full, I have never experienced this happening.

(Pasta doesn’t make for great pictures, but it was really good)

In the end we all ended up sleeping in the same room because of the girls’ friend who left the extra bed. After we dropped our stuff off, we decided it was time to grab dinner and then head to bed. Because the Czech Republic is in the European Union, some places will accept Euros, but the country has its own currency that most places prefer you to use, so we had to find a place that was willing to accept Euros since we had not yet withdrawn crowns. This place ended up being an Italian place that we had spotted on our way down the hill. We all ordered different pasta dishes, and in the end, a Czech beer. For some reason Czech beers are something that are recommended for people to try, and they are very good, but I guess it is one of the lesser known beer countries unless you live in Europe (maybe now they are becoming more well-known). Dinner over, we went back to the hostel and got ready for bed.

On Christmas day we also had a late morning, but this did not affect our plans for the day. We had decided that we would go out to eat some local cuisine in every country and what day was better than Christmas Day? In the United States restaurants would probably be closed, but we had read online from multiple sources that here, places opened up for dinner and we wouldn’t have trouble finding a place to eat.

(On the way to the park)

We had looked up a couple of places online just to have options, but we did not know if they would be open or not. With this information and having eaten breakfast and finished getting ready for the day, we decided to head out on our Christmas journey.

(Our rainy Christmas)

It was not a white Christmas in Munich. Although it had been sunny the day before, I woke up at about two in the morning and listened as the rain started to fall. The rain was still coming down when we got up in the morning, but when we left the hostel it had already stopped, leaving a damp and gray day. It is a good thing that I enjoy gray and stormy weather, especially since I am studying abroad in St. Petersburg.

(We found the park!)

We headed to a park we planned to walk in and enjoy the afternoon in (since there wasn’t much morning left by the time we got there). After getting out of the metro station and wandering around for a bit we found the park (the street setup made it a little hard to find the park), and along with it we found many people also spending part of their Christmas Day walking in the park with their families and dogs. I think the park was called the English Gardens, or something along those lines, although it was really a park. It was beautiful, but there were no gardens.

(There were no gardens, but there were lots of trees and a small river)

The first part of the gardens we encountered was a small creek at the edge of a neighborhood. We found a bridge to cross into the park and walked to a nearby lake from there. Mostly we just wandered across the different paths of the park in the direction of the old town. At one point we ran across a small stand that sold such food items as we had encountered in the Nuremberg Markets. Kenzy decided she was hungry and bought a sausage on bread like they sold in the markets, I think I just did not want to pay for food so I didn’t get anything. After Kenzy had already purchased her lunch, she spotted peppermint chocolate. They only had one small bar of the peppermint in the whole box of chocolate, but it was enough to satisfy Kenzy and Ali on their quest for peppermint, at least for a short time.

(The lake with many geese and ducks)

(I liked the light colored duck because it was different, but it did not want to cooperate with me so I could take its picture).

As we continued on in the park, the story of our day becomes more difficult to tell. Many of the families had dogs with them and Kenzy loves dogs so she enjoyed this immensely. Even though we passed by many people walking their dogs and many of the dogs were very cute, I forgot to take any pictures of the people with their dogs. Perhaps this doesn’t seem like a significant mistake, but their were so many dogs in the park that it can’t not be significant. Regardless, it was interesting to see so many different types of dogs in one place.

Moving on from the dogs that we encountered, the difficult part of the story included such events as the quest for the chalice of “Immortality or Whatever,” which they had fresh run out of so this quest would prove very difficult. (I don’t know who they were and I not sure how to tell the story of how this came up to you, so I will leave it at this). It also included climbing the hill to reach the “temple” where the chalice of “Immortality and Shit Like That” was to be found. I think that somewhere along the way we were having trouble finding the area we were looking for and a conversation comparing this search to those of the Holy Grail came up somehow prompting the search for these chalices.

(Houses across the lake)

(The “temple” wasn’t so much of a temple)

(The view from up on the hill with the “temple”)

(Looking back)

After spending many hours walking through the park, we headed back to the old town to find a place to eat Christmas dinner. Despite what sources online had told us, it was very difficult to find a place to eat dinner, open or closed. This would be the first of our dinners where we chose a restaurant for the sake of eating “local cuisine,” but it was the only one that would be for the sake of Christmas dinner.

(A river near the end of the park)

Our dinners consisted of a couple of different types of bratwurst, schnitzel and potatoes done in various fashions of course. Although much of it was good food, the schnitzel, which Kenzy ordered, was not done correctly. This being my first encounter with schnitzel, put me off of the dish for some time, but I would have another opportunity to try it later.

(The sky was so beautiful)

Promptly after finishing dinner, we headed back to the hostel. I skyped my family very briefly, on the awful hostel wifi that barely worked. It was so bad that their faces showed up in large boxy (pixilated) images like people used to when skype was a newer form of communication. I skyped them to wish them a Merry Christmas, so other than packing so that we could leave the next day, with that, our day had come to an end.